“Brain Pathways for Adaptive Goal Seeking” grant award.

Smith laboratory was awarded a 3-year research grant from the Whitehall Foundation. The award is to fund a project called “Brain Pathways for Adaptive Goal Seeking”. The project will use electrical recordings and optogenetics technology to understand how the brain makes goals valuable, and how that value can shift depending on internal states like changes in appetite. 

Whitehall Award Description: The Whitehall Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation which is focused exclusively on assisting basic research in vertebrate (excluding clinical) and invertebrate neurobiology in the United States.  Investigations should specifically concern neural mechanisms involved in sensory, motor, and other complex functions of the whole organism as these relate to behavior. The overall goal should be to better understand behavioral output or brain mechanisms of behavior.